Whats good for the horse is good for the horse owner

I was reminded recently of how taking care of a sick pet will often improve our own health. A friend of mine had her horse become lame through an accident. Her vet told her that her horse needed to be walked everyday to strengthen its leg. She had explicit instructions not to lunge the horse, hand walking only. She had to do that for at least 30 minutes a day, twice a day. At first all my friend could think about was missing the riding aspect of her horse and all that walking.

At about the second week of the hand walking, her vet came out and said everything was healing nicely and now she was to add something else, walking up and down small inclines. So she now began walking her horse up and down her hilly driveway. After a few days of that she was really starting to enjoy just taking her horse for her twice a day walks. Before the "hilly" walks she would just be walking around the barn areas, but now the change in scenery was good for both of them.

The third week, her vet added short jogs to the routine. So here is my friend taking her horse jogging! It was after one of her jogging routines she dropped by my house. I had not seen her in about 4 weeks and boy had she changed! She lost a ton of weight. She said she found the secret to get rid of belly fat, it was to jog a horse twice a day, up and down a hill.

At that point in time, she had about 3 more weeks of jogging to go before the vet might allow some light riding. I did not see her again until her horse was back under saddle and she had lost a total of 30 pounds of weight. Boy does she look good. She told me that she would have never taken up jogging if it was not for her vets orders to help her horse.